Gratitude, du’ā, and acceptance

Glory to Allāh and Salutations on Rasulullāh Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam

This Dunyā, with all its glitter and glamour, is a very enticing place. At times we get so carried away by it that we become its slave and forget our Rabb. We start living a life that is totally against the commands of Allāh Ta’ala and the Sunnāh of Rasulullāh (Sall-Allāhu ‘alayhi wasallam).

It is at this time that Almighty Allāh with His infinite mercy may decide to give us a jolt or a shove so that we may come to our senses and realize our mistakes. This jolt may come in the form of an accident, an illness, loss in our business or setback in any of our worldly affairs.

As soon as any one of the above calamities strikes us we get up from our deep slumber and start wondering with much apprehension, “Why such a thing has happened to me, what wrong have I done?”

At that moment if we have a little bit of īmān, we start realizing how far we have gone away from Allāh Ta’ala. This realization may lead most of us turn to Allāh Ta’ala for His help. We profoundly start making Du’ā. Our lifestyle gets drastically changed, our ‘Ibādat gets intensified, our giving of Sadaqāh increases, we become very regular in reciting the Qur’an and our piety level reaches a new height. In short, we try our best to invoke the mercy of Allāh in every respect. And Allāh Ta’ala, Ghafoor-ur-Rahim that He is, listens to our supplication and very gracefully wards off the problem and normality starts returning to our life.

This in real fact is a very delicate and a decisive period. It is the time when Allāh Subhānahu wa ta’ala is actually testing our sincerity. He wants to know if His slave permanently maintains the piety level that he has just achieved in his life or does he return to the same old life full of disobedience of Allāh that he was used to, prior to the calamity.

However, human nature is such that as soon as our Du’ā is accepted and the catastrophe starts shifting away from our life, most of us start forgetting the favours of Allāh and gradually begin to return to our past life of disobedience of the āhkām (commands) of Allāh. In other words we become the same old selves. We forget the hard times we have just gone through and how desperately we were pleading Allāh for His divine help. This attitude can turn out to be very dangerous for our Dunyā as well as for our Ākhirat as it can invoke the wrath of Allāh Ta’ala.

Allāh Ta’ala in His sublime manner describes the situation thus in Qur’ān Majīd:

He it is Who enables you to travel through land and sea, till when you are in the ships and they sail with them with a favourable wind, and they are glad therein, then comes a stormy wind and the waves come to them from all sides, and they think that they are encircled therein, they invoke Allāh, making their Faith pure for Him Alone, saying: “If You (Allāh) deliver us from this, we shall truly be of the grateful.”

But when He delivered them, behold! They rebel (disobey Allāh) in the earth wrongfully. O mankind! Your rebellion (disobedience to Allāh) is only against your own selves, – a brief enjoyment of this worldly life, then (in the end) unto Us is your return, and We shall inform you that which you used to do.

(Surāh: Yunus Verses: 22 and 23).

How can we express our thanks to Allah with all sincerity for accepting of our Du’ā when we were in a very precarious position? The best way is to bring permanent changes in our life in conformity with His commands and the Sunnah of Rasulullāh Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam and also, very importantly, to invite others to the same.

With plenty of Istighfār let us all make Du’ā to Allāh Ta’ala that He may forgive all our shortcomings in obeying His commands and also make Du’ā that He does not put us to any test and if at all He decides to test us then we may pass that test to His satisfaction…Ameen.